


Memento Mori

by Sineala



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Secret Wars Battleworlds, New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Infinity Gauntlet, Magic, New Avengers Vol. 3 (2013), The Illuminati (Marvel), Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 03:18:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12998703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: "And where are your Vishanti now?" Victor asks, softly. "Where is your Oshtur, your Hoggoth, your Agamotto?""Gone," Stephen says, just as softly.Victor abides no gods but himself.





	Memento Mori

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/gifts).



> A canon-divergent vignette in which Stephen Strange lives, diverging from Secret Wars #4. Contains spoilers for Triumph & Torment as well as Hickman's New Avengers run.

On the windswept plain, one of many in this patchwork realm, Stephen Strange lowers his hands. Scott Summers, the Phoenix, is dead at Doom's hand. The rest, he has scattered to the winds. Thanos. His Illuminati brethren, Namor and T'Challa. And, of course, Reed. 

The sign and countersign that he and Reed had spoken just a few hours ago, stumbling off the life raft, rings in his head: memento mori. Remember, you will die.

The phrase has been whispered at emperors, at the moment of their great triumphs. It is said that slaves stood behind them in their chariots to tell them this. Stephen Strange, Sheriff of Agamotto -- in another life, on a world that no longer exists, he had a very good education.

The only other man on the plain is Victor Von Doom.

Stephen is thinking a great deal about his own death, now.

Victor steps forward. His hand is held out, bare inches from Stephen's chest, where once an amulet used to hang. The only Eye on this world is God-Emperor Doom's.

"They would topple me," Victor says. "And, you, Stephen, my right hand, you who stood by my side at the birth of this world -- you would aid them? You would aid _Richards_ in this heresy?"

"You are not their god," Stephen says, over the wind of this dead plain.

He can't see it, but he imagines Victor is smiling. "Ah, but I am _your_ god, Stephen," he murmurs. "Do you remember, that time we met at the Temple of the Three, to heed the summons of the Aged Genghis? The Vishanti had set a test for us."

Stephen did not expect to recall this, in his last moments. He had won the contest, and he had been made to grant Victor a boon, that of the quest to find his mother's soul in hell, to win it from Mephisto.

He does not think Victor bothered to remake Mephisto, in this world of theirs.

Stephen's throat is dry. "I remember."

"And where are your Vishanti now?" Victor asks, softly. "Where is your Oshtur, your Hoggoth, your Agamotto?"

"Gone," Stephen says, just as softly.

Victor abides no gods but himself.

"You have not raised the Flames of the Faltine against me," Victor says. "And if I were to strike you down, you could not conjure a Shield of the Seraphim. There are none to beg or borrow magic from, none but me. You live at my sufferance, Stephen. You serve at my whim. The power you have is what I allow, that and no more." His outstretched hand clenches into a fist. "All I have done for you, and you would defy me -- to die, alone and powerless, for _Reed Richards_?"

Stephen's heart pounds in his chest, and his scarred and broken hands ache with the need to do something, anything. Let his death be worth something. Let it not come like this, insignificant, forgotten.

"He is my friend," Stephen says. He repeats himself. "As I said, we did great things together."

He will not shut his eyes. He will see his death when it comes, even if it is for nothing.

"At my side, Stephen, we will do greater." Victor... lowers his fist? "The rest of your Illuminati will not bow before me. You have told me this. I know." There is a pause, as if Victor is smiling behind his mask. "But you have bowed once, Stephen. You can again. You will."

Victor raises his hand again, flat now. Imperious. As he has always been.

"I am a merciful god, Stephen," Victor says. "Kneel before me, and all will be forgiven."

Reed would not thank him for dying like this.

He was a doctor first. Do no harm. Not even to himself.

Perhaps, Stephen thinks, he does not have as much pride as he thought he did.

The dust of the plain is gray where it spatters the knees of his trousers, and the earth is hard under him. He lowers himself. He abases himself. Memento mori, he thinks.

He bows double, his head against the dirt, and he shuts his eyes. His ruined hands are splayed wide, palms flat against the ground, conjuring nothing.

An armored hand rests on the crown of Stephen's head, heavy and harsh. A warning. A promise.

The hand makes a fist in the fabric at the shoulder of his shirt and tugs him upward.

"Rise, Stephen Strange, Sheriff of Agamotto," Victor says, and Stephen tilts his head back and blinks up at the light. At Doom's mercy. Beyond him, the sun is lit by a man aflame. Another mercy. He could have killed Storm, and did not.

For the first time in eight years, he wonders why he's the sheriff of Agamotto when the Vishanti are gone, and somewhere within him, in the back of his mind, he feels the spirit of the tiger. He feels something very akin to hope.

* * *

Castle Doom that night is quiet and empty. The halls and the great echoing court -- all of it plays host only to himself, Valeria, and of course Victor.

When Victor's teleport spell releases them both, Valeria steps forward.

"That outcome was difficult to foresee," she says, wide-eyed. "The highest probability was that--"

That Stephen would die. She does not need to say it.

"You are my left hand, Valeria," Victor says. "You are the Foundation. And Stephen is my right, the Law. I should hope to keep both my hands." He inclines his head. "Please, I wish to speak to Stephen alone."

Valeria nods and walks away.

Stephen is alone with his god.

"They will rise against me, Stephen. You have ensured it."

Stephen says nothing.

"They couldn't save the multiverse." Victor paces toward his throne, turns, and sits. "Only I could. Only we could. And even before the last incursion, the Illuminati were helpless -- you would have been lost to a populated Earth, had Thanos and his Cabal, Thanos and his Black Order not done what was necessary."

Stephen coughs. "Namor."

It is difficult to cross one's god.

Victor's eyes narrow. "Pardon?"

"Namor did it first, my lord," Stephen says.

Namor was one of them, Illuminati before he was Cabal, and they had thrown him out for it -- but now, Stephen is grateful. Now, one of them might be able to do what is needed. He remembers long nights spent arguing in Wakanda, walking the corridors of the Necropolis, watching Tony wire bombs that he'd never been able to bring himself to use. The rest of them would laugh if they knew it could come back down to Namor now. He hopes it's T'Challa. He would rather T'Challa than Namor. Wouldn't they all.

Stephen thinks about the Infinity Gauntlet, hidden away here on this world, in his Sanctum. They had saved their Earth with a Gauntlet, once. Perhaps it could do more.

"Ah," Victor says. "So he did." There's another pause. "Consider your choices carefully, Stephen."

He had told Victor, on the plain, that he was right to be afraid of Reed. Reed would have ruled well. This is Reed's life. Reed's family. And Victor knows it.

He knows, then, that Victor -- his all-seeing god with his all-seeing Eye -- knows what he's planning.

He knows Victor is going to let him.

Victor isn't infallible. He's still human. He still wears the armor. He's never healed his face. It has to mean he has weaknesses.

Maybe he's decided it's Reed's turn.

This is how an emperor's reign will end.

Battleworld was never meant to be permanent. Summers had the right idea. They need to build something better out of the ashes.

* * *

On the Isle of Agamotto, the Sanctum Sanctorum is warded. Or perhaps it isn't -- as Victor pointed out, all magic is his. But Stephen is alive, so obviously his god allows him this.

A glyph curls in the corner of the Sanctum. Communications. Stephen raises a hand and passes two fingers through the light.

"Memento mori," Reed's voice says. Sign and countersign. Remember, you will die.

Stephen hasn't forgotten. He feels his mouth curve into a smile. "Illuminatus."

By the Vishanti, he thinks. He dares to believe.

"What have you got for me, Stephen?" Reed asks. Like this is one of the incursions again, like it's eight hours out and they need a solution.

Hope. A new world, perhaps.

Their first and best solution.

"Infinity," he says, and he hears Reed laugh.

The Gauntlet only worked once, before, when it shattered in Rogers' hand.

That's fine by Stephen. It only needs to work once.

"All right," Reed says. "That'll do."


End file.
